Line 6 Helix

stickyfiddle

Ah nice  

No new models though; just bugs. 

duotone

Just discovered the TILT (in EQ) - Am finding it really useful to make quick changes to how dark/bright I want the tone to sound. 

Heres the blurb:

“Tilt is a subtle 6dB EQ that boosts high frequencies while simultaneously attenuating low frequencies (or vice versa). Great for quickly making tones a bit brighter or darker. The Center Freq parameter sets the frequency around which the boost and cut pivot. “

bloodandtears

Is there a quick way to freeze a note? i.e sustain a note at the end of the solo INDEFINITELY until I press another button?

fretmeister

duotone said:

Just discovered the TILT (in EQ) - Am finding it really useful to make quick changes to how dark/bright I want the tone to sound. 

Heres the blurb:

“Tilt is a subtle 6dB EQ that boosts high frequencies while simultaneously attenuating low frequencies (or vice versa). Great for quickly making tones a bit brighter or darker. The Center Freq parameter sets the frequency around which the boost and cut pivot. “

They've pinched that from the Laney Digbeth Bass amps. It's a very useful feature to have.

Musicwolf

fretmeister said:

duotone said:

Just discovered the TILT (in EQ) - Am finding it really useful to make quick changes to how dark/bright I want the tone to sound. 

Heres the blurb:

“Tilt is a subtle 6dB EQ that boosts high frequencies while simultaneously attenuating low frequencies (or vice versa). Great for quickly making tones a bit brighter or darker. The Center Freq parameter sets the frequency around which the boost and cut pivot. “

They've pinched that from the Laney Digbeth Bass amps. It's a very useful feature to have.

Tilt EQ has been around since the 1970's.  I think that Quad were the first to market it.

fretmeister

I didn't know that. Haven't seen it before until the Laney amps had it.

Musicwolf

fretmeister said:

I didn't know that. Haven't seen it before until the Laney amps had it.

It's sort of back in fashion.  These days, in the studio, I find the most useful EQ to be the 'dynamic' type.  Not available as a Helix model though.

willo

bloodandtears said:

Is there a quick way to freeze a note? i.e sustain a note at the end of the solo INDEFINITELY until I press another button?

Poly sustain will do it. It might also be possible with the feedbacker if you set the pitch to +0 semitones. I can also get massive sustain with a compressor and fuzz.

With the first two options, I often set the switch to momentary rather than latching, so it only applies when I have the switch pressed down.

duotone

Anyone know if the increments (on amps & fx) can be changed from going up in 0.1, 0.2 etc. to 1,2,3?

Jetfire

duotone said:

Anyone know if the increments (on amps & fx) can be changed from going up in 0.1, 0.2 etc. to 1,2,3?

no but thats a great question..!

willo

duotone said:

Just discovered the TILT (in EQ) - Am finding it really useful to make quick changes to how dark/bright I want the tone to sound. 

Heres the blurb:

“Tilt is a subtle 6dB EQ that boosts high frequencies while simultaneously attenuating low frequencies (or vice versa). Great for quickly making tones a bit brighter or darker. The Center Freq parameter sets the frequency around which the boost and cut pivot. “

I hadn't noticed that new pedal but it sounds useful for me, especially in live. I've recently been enjoying adding reverb 'mix' as a paremeter to the foot pedal so I can adjust it to the venue and song easily. Tilt would also be a nice one, especially for shifting between guitars!

UnclePsychosis

duotone said:

Anyone know if the increments (on amps & fx) can be changed from going up in 0.1, 0.2 etc. to 1,2,3?

I think this is one of the only areas where the Helix UI lags behind that on other systems. I don't think you can do this! 

UnclePsychosis

Guys, I've been tinkering with Helix Native again and I'm really looking for some help.

How the fuck do the parallel paths and sub paths work? 

Most things in Helix are really intuitive but I can't figure this out for the life of me. 

There doesn't seem to be a simple way to have two paths that you can switch between (eg one chain for clean and one for dirty). Am i missing something? I can see how you'd do it by assigning a button to switch between the A/B block panned 100% to either side but that seems ridiculously convoluted.

Can anyone help? Bonus points if anyone can explain the difference between the A and B paths and the subpaths. I've still to establish when I'd ever use a B path (or even how to use the B path). 

Thanks

Musicwolf

You need to insert a gain block at the start, or end, of each path and set the gain to -120.0 dB (i.e. no signal passes).  You can then asign those gain blocks to a footswitch or a snapshot.  De-activate the gain block on the channel that you want to use, activate the block on the channel that you are not using.  Here are a couple of snapshots from a patch that I use.  The upper path is my 'rhythm' sound, the lower my 'solo'.  You will see that in the top snapshot (rhythm) the gain block in the upper path is de-activated (greyed out) but active in the lower.  On the solo snaphot this is reversed.

UnclePsychosis

Thanks.

Is this really the best way to do it? It seems really inelegant by helix standards. 

Musicwolf

There doesn't appear to be a way to asign the input to either a fotswitch or Snapshot.  You could asign the output to a Snapshot and drp the level to zero on the unused path - but that's effectively the same as puting a volume block in there.

What I used to do is, rather than have a simple gain block in there, I use a volume pedal asigned to the expression pedal.  Same expresion for both paths but working in reverse for one.  If I was just using two sounds it was an easy way to move between them (easier to hit a big expression pedal when your also singing rather than hitting a footswitch).

UnclePsychosis

After doing some research this afternoon this is one of these things that actually seems to be easier / more intuitive on the hardware units than it is in Native. 

If you create an A/B Split, then you can assign "route to" to a switch and toggle between A100 (min) and B100 (max). 

Even though I've worked this out, I do find the way the splits work to be really unintuitive tbh. Turning a split "off" doesn't do remotely what I'd expect it to. 

guitarmangler

I ditched the idea of parallel paths in favour of one path and just changing everything with snapshots. Same sound, just less hassle to set up.

bloodandtears

guitarmangler said:

I ditched the idea of parallel paths in favour of one path and just changing everything with snapshots. Same sound, just less hassle to set up.

less blocks available though cos you wont have those two extra signal lanes..

Musicwolf

guitarmangler said:

I ditched the idea of parallel paths in favour of one path and just changing everything with snapshots. Same sound, just less hassle to set up.

Indeed.  I lean towards parallel paths because.

a)    I started by using the expression pedal as a way of switching between paths.  I no longer do this, because I trigger all by Snapshot switching via sequenced midi commands (I'm working with backing tracks), but a lot of my patches are based on stuff that I've created previously.

b)    If I'm using a guitar with a piezo, as well as a mag, output then I have two different inputs (guitar and aux) meaning that I need the two paths.